Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6 by Bernard Schaffer Read Free Book Online Page A

while she grabbed the bottle.   Claire saw the bottle and grabbed for it, clawing at her mother’s hand in the desperate way only a small child can manage.  
     
    “Here you go, sweetie pie,” Betsy whispered.   “Here you go.”   She felt Claire’s rump and realized her diaper cloth was full.   Both of Seneca’s moons were still overhead, casting everything in pale blue light, but the sun was coming.   One could tell from the way the valley around them began to shimmer with amber hues that reflected the red clay of the wasteland surrounding the settlement.   Claire laid her daughter down and unpinned her diaper, smiling down at the baby as she pressed the bottle to her lips and drank greedily.  
     
    Betsy found her husband sitting on the porch, staring at the meadow.   His rifle was laid across his lap and he had both his guns on.   Sam looked up at her and said, “What are you doing up?”
     
    “I needed help with the baby and didn’t know where you were,” she said.
     
    “I’m normally gone by this time anyway.”
     
    “When you were working, you mean.”
     
    “Everybody’s entitled to some time off now and again, Betsy.   Tom’s got things well in hand.”
     
    Betsy patted Claire on the back and tried to coax a burp out of her.   “Most people take time off to do things besides sulk around the house, Samuel Clayton.   All you’ve done for two weeks is sit on my front porch collecting dust.   You ain’t shaved in so long you look like a grizzly bear.”
     
    Sam scratched the length of hair on his neck and said, “I keep meaning to.   It itches like hell.”
     
    “Why don’t you go wake Jem up and take him fishing?   Stop sitting around feeling sorry for yourself and go do something with your boy for once.”
     
    He looked up at her in the early dawn light, the way the sun played with the loose curls of her hair and lit their tips aglow.   “All right, honey.   I will.   Just give me a little while.”
     
    “Okay,” she said.   “I’m going to go lay her down and get a little more sleep if I can.   You two have fun.”
     
    “We will,” he said.   Sam looked back to watch his wife go through the door and returned to the place in the meadow he’d been watching.   That would be the place Whiskey Pete would emerge, Sam reckoned.   That was the place he’d hunker down and try to spy on them, waiting for a second bite at the apple.  
     
    Wouldn’t be none this time, Sam thought.   He raised his rifle and looked down the sites, seeing nothing but swaying grass and yellow dirt.  
     
    I’ll wake Jem up in a little while, he thought.  
     
    But he never did.
     
    ***
     
    He’d been sitting at the wheel for over an hour.   So long that the sparks looked like fiery rain spitting against his chest in the setting sun.   Sam took his foot off the pedal and inspected the blade in the dim light, then lightly bounced the edge of the blade across the surface of his thumbnail.   “Sum bitch!” he shouted, ripping his hand away and shaking it.   The knife bit him too deep, and Sam stuck his thumb in his mouth, tasting blood.  
     
    His little boy came up through the meadow and said, “You hurt yourself?”
     
    “Only by being stupid,” Sam grimaced.   “Look at this.”  
     
    Jem peered down at the injury and said, “Guess the knife’s pretty sharp.”
     
    “You ain’t kidding.”  
     
    “Can I see it?”
     
    “Absolutely not.”
     
    “All right.”
     
    Sam looked back at the boy and said, “Here.   Come over near me.   This knife is not like any other knife you’ve ever held before, so pay special attention and be extra careful.”  
     
    Jem rolled his eyes, “Dad, I use knives all the time.”
     
    “That’s true,” Sam said.   “You used fruit knives and steak knives.   Your little pocket knife sure came in handy the other week, didn’t it?”
     
    Jem nodded and patted his pocket.   The knife hadn’t left his side since